Scandal by Carolyn Jewel Read Free Book Online

still,” Banallt said. “I do understand.”
    â€œActually, I don’t think you do.” Mercer sat forward, forearms on his spread-apart knees, immune, it seemed, to his glare. “You haven’t any idea what she was like as a girl, do you?”
    Banallt said nothing. Sophie had told him almost nothing of her childhood.
    â€œAlways laughing. She was a happy child. Did she happen to mention to you how much time she spent at Castle Darmead?” Mercer waited a heartbeat. “I thought not. She’d badger the caretakers for information and come home full of facts about the castle and its history. The history of your family.” He smiled fondly. “And then she’d work all those facts into stories. No reason she’d tell you about that, but she did. The earls of Banallt always loomed large in her tales. I used to try to trip her up in her facts, but I never succeeded. Eventually I gave up trying. Ripping good stories, too.” He sat up straight. “I’m telling you this so that you’ll understand why she would be more susceptible to you than anyone else. To your title in particular. Don’t misunderstand me, I mean the fact that you are the Earl of Banallt. If you were Prinny himself she wouldn’t care half so much.”
    â€œYour sister is quite the democrat.” He was certain where their conversation was headed. But he did not intend to be so easily discouraged.
    â€œMy point, sir, is that however it was you met, you couldn’t possibly live up to her girlhood ideal of the absent master of Castle Darmead.”
    â€œYou underestimate your sister if you think her unable to separate childhood imagination from a flesh-and-blood man.”
    His eyes narrowed. “Whatever you were to her, I think we both know you didn’t come close to being her knight in shining armor.”
    Banallt barked a laugh. “Me, a knight in armor? She never thought that of me.”
    â€œPerhaps not. Yet I know seeing you again has hurt her.” He stood up. “My sister has had more than her share of unhappiness, my lord. More than enough. What happened between you two I don’t care to know. What I do know is that Sophie assured me she would be unaffected should we have the misfortune of meeting you in London.” He lifted a hand. “Hear me out. She insists that’s so, but I don’t believe her.”
    Banallt made sure his expression revealed nothing. Mercer looked at him, his curls wild from his hand scrubbing through his hair. Mercer continued. “I want Sophie’s happiness, my lord. Do you understand? She deserves that after Evans. What a debacle that was. At least three people saw her the night she ran away with Evans. Three. And no one said a word. No one warned us, and my father didn’t realize she’d grown up and needed watching. To him, she was still his little girl. He never dreamed she felt that way about Evans.”
    â€œI think,” Banallt said, “you are unaware of how hurt your sister was by her family’s refusal to see her.” Mercer wasn’t blameless in Sophie’s unhappiness. “Her husband’s neglect she dealt with in her own fashion. But the letters returned to her from Havenwood? Unopened?” Mercer cocked his head, assessing what it meant that Banallt knew about the letters and how she’d felt. “She never recovered from that.”
    Mercer looked at him from under his lashes. “That’s unfair.”
    â€œIt’s unfair of you to judge what you never witnessed. And you, Mr. Mercer, never witnessed your sister’s married life. Nor her devotion to an undeserving husband, nor her private heartbreaks. Nor my friendship with her.” He was angry but managed to maintain a smooth and even tone. “Which, I do assure you, is all there was between us.”
    â€œShe turned you away, my lord. Don’t overestimate my influence over her. I assure